Luke 1:15

For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) And shall drink neither wine nor strong drink.—The child now promised was to grow up as a Nazarite (Numbers 6:4), and to keep that vow all his life, as the representative of the ascetic, the “separated,” form (this is the meaning of the term) of a consecrated life. He was to be what Samson had been (Judges 13:4), and probably Samuel also (1Samuel 1:11), and the house of Jonadab the son of Rechab (Jeremiah 35:6). The close connection between the Nazarite and the prophetic life is seen in Amos 2:11-12. The absence of the lower form of stimulation implied the capacity for the higher enthusiasm which was the gift of God. The same contrast is seen in St. Paul’s words, “Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).

He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.—The words would be understood by Zacharias from the Hebrew point of view, not as seen in the fuller light of Christian theology. As such they would convey the thought of the highest prophetic inspiration, as in Isaiah 11:2; Isaiah 61:1; Joel 2:28.

Even from his mother’s womb.—The thought of a life from first to last in harmony with itself and consecrated to the prophet’s work, had its prototype in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5).

MacLaren's Expositions

Luke

ELIJAH COME AGAIN

TRUE GREATNESS

Luke 1:15.

So spake the angel who foretold the birth of John the Baptist. ‘In the sight of the Lord’-then men are not on a dead level in His eyes. Though He is so high and we are so low, the country beneath Him that He looks down upon is not flattened to Him, as it is to us from an elevation, but there are greater and smaller men in His sight, too. No epithet is more misused and misapplied than that of ‘a great man.’ It is flung about indiscriminately as ribbons and orders are by some petty State. Every little man that makes a noise for a while gets it hung round his neck. Think what a set they are that are gathered in the world’s Valhalla, and honoured as the world’s great men! The mass of people are so much on a level, and that level is so low, that an inch above the average looks gigantic. But the tallest blade of grass gets mown down by the scythe, and withers as quickly as the rest of its green companions, and goes its way into the oven as surely. There is the world’s false estimate of greatness and there is God’s estimate. If we want to know what the elements of true greatness are, we may well turn to the life of this man, of whom the prophecy went before him that he should be ‘great in the sight of the Lord.’ That is gold that will stand the test.

We may remember, too, that Jesus Christ, looking back on the career to which the angel was looking forward, endorsed the prophecy and declared that it had become a fact, and that ‘of them that were born of women there had not arisen a greater than John the Baptist.’ With the illumination of His eulogium we may turn to this life, then, and gather some lessons for our own guidance.

I. First, we note in John unwavering and immovable firmness and courage.

‘What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A reed shaken with the wind?’ Nay! an iron pillar that stood firm whatsoever winds blew against it. This, as I take it, is in some true sense the basis of all moral greatness-that a man should have a grip which cannot be loosened, like that of the cuttle-fish with all its tentacles round its prey, upon the truths that dominate his being and make him a hero. ‘If you want me to weep,’ said the old artist-poet, ‘there must be tears in your own eyes.’ If you want me to believe, you yourself must be aflame with conviction which has penetrated to the very marrow of your bones. And so, as I take it, the first requisite either for power with others, or for greatness in a man’s own development of character, is that there shall be this unwavering firmness of grasp of clearly-apprehended truths, and unflinching boldness of devotion to them.

I need not remind you how magnificently, all through the life of our typical example, this quality was stamped upon every utterance and every act. It reached its climax, no doubt, in his bearding Herod and Herodias. But moral characteristics do not reach a climax unless there has been much underground building to bear the lofty pinnacle; and no man, when great occasions come to him, develops a courage and an unwavering confidence which are strange to his habitual life. There must be the underground building; and there must have been many a fighting down of fears, many a curbing of tremors, many a rebuke of hesitations and doubts in the gaunt, desert-loving prophet, before he was man enough to stand before Herod and say, ‘It is not lawful for thee to have her.’

No doubt there is much to be laid to the account of temperament, but whatever their temperament may be, the way to this unwavering courage and firm, clear ring of indubitable certainty, is open to every Christian man and woman; and it is our own fault, our own sin, and our own weakness, if we do not possess these qualities. Temperament! what on earth is the good of our religion if it is not to modify and govern our temperament? Has a man a right to jib on one side, and give up the attempt to clear the fence, because he feels that in his own natural disposition there is little power to take the leap? Surely not. Jesus Christ came here for the very purpose of making our weakness strong, and if we have a firm hold upon Him, then, in the measure in which His love has permeated our whole nature, will be our unwavering courage, and out of weakness we shall be made strong.

Of course the highest type of this undaunted boldness and unwavering firmness of conviction is not in John and his like. He presented strength in a lower form than did the Master from whom his strength came. The willow has a beauty as well as the oak. Firmness is not obstinacy; courage is not rudeness. It is possible to have the iron hand in the velvet glove, not of etiquette-observing politeness, but of a true considerateness and gentleness. They who are likest Him that was ‘meek and lowly in heart,’ are surest to possess the unflinching resolve which set His face like a flint, and enabled Him to go unhesitatingly and unrecalcitrant to the Cross itself.

Do not let us forget, either, that John’s unwavering firmness wavered; that over the clear heaven of his convictions there did steal a cloud; that he from whom no violence could wrench his faith felt it slipping out of his grasp when his muscles were relaxed in the dungeon; and that he sent ‘from the prison’-which was the excuse for the message-to ask the question, ‘After all, art Thou He that should come?’

Nor let us forget that it was that very moment of tremulousness which Jesus Christ seized, in order to pour an unstinted flood of praise for the firmness of his convictions, on the wavering head of the Forerunner. So, if we feel that though the needle of our compass points true to the pole, yet when the compass-frame is shaken, the needle sometimes vibrates away from its true direction, do not let us be cast down, but believe that a merciful allowance is made for human weakness. This man was great; first, because he had such dauntless courage and firmness that, over his headless corpse in the dungeon at Machaerus, might have been spoken what the Regent Moray said over John Knox’s coffin, ‘Here lies one that never feared the face of man.’

II. Another element of true greatness that comes nobly out in the life with which I am dealing is its clear elevation above worldly good.

That was the second point that our Lord’s eulogium signalised. ‘What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment?’ But you would have gone to a palace, if you had wanted to see that, not to the reed-beds of Jordan. As we all know, in his life, in his dress, in his food, in the aims that he set before him, he rose high above all regard for the debasing and perishable sweetnesses that appeal to flesh, and are ended in time. He lived conspicuously for the Unseen. His asceticism belonged to his age, and was not the highest type of the virtue which it expressed. As I have said about his courage, so I say about his self-denial-Christ’s is of a higher sort. As the might of gentleness is greater than the might of such strength as John’s, so the asceticism of John is lower than the self-government of the Man that came eating and drinking.

But whilst that is true, I seek, dear brethren, to urge this old threadbare lesson, always needed, never needed more than amidst the senselessly luxurious habits of this generation, needed in few places more than in a great commercial centre like that in which we live, that one indispensable element of true greatness and elevation of character is that, not the prophet and the preacher alone, but every one of us, should live high above these temptations of gross and perishable joys, should.

‘Scorn delights and live laborious days.’

No man has a right to be called ‘great’ if his aims are small. And the question is, not as modern idolatry of intellect, or, still worse, modern idolatry of success, often makes it out to be, Has he great capacities? or has he won great prizes? but has he greatly used himself and his life? If your aims are small you will never be great; and if your highest aims are but to get a good slice of this world’s pudding-no matter what powers God may have given you to use-you are essentially a small man.

I remember a vigorous and contemptuous illustration of St. Bernard’s, who likens a man that lives for these perishable delights which John spurned, to a spider spinning a web out of his own substance, and catching in it nothing but a wretched prey of poor little flies. Such a one has surely no right to be called a great man. Our aims rather than our capacity determine our character, and they who greatly aspire after the greatest things within the reach of men, which are faith, hope, charity, and who, for the sake of effecting these aspirations, put their heels upon the head of the serpent and suppress the animal in their nature, these are the men ‘great in the sight of the Lord.’

III. Another element of true greatness, taught us by our type, is fiery enthusiasm for righteousness.

You may think that that has little to do with greatness. I believe it has everything to do with it, and that the difference between men is very largely to be found here, whether they flame up into the white heat of enthusiasm for the things that are right, or whether the only things that can kindle them into anything like earnestness and emotion are the poor, shabby things of personal advantage. I need not remind you how, all through John’s career, there burned, unflickering and undying, that steadfast light; how he brought to the service of the plainest teaching of morality a fervour of passion and of zeal almost unexampled and magnificent. I need not remind you how Jesus Christ Himself laid His hand upon this characteristic, when He said of him that ‘he was a light kindled and shining.’ But I would lay upon all our hearts the plain, practical lesson that, if we keep in that tepid region of lukewarmness which is the utmost approach to tropical heat that moral and religious questions are capable of raising in many of us, good-bye to all chance of being ‘great in the sight of the Lord.’ We hear a great deal about the ‘blessings of moderation,’ the ‘dangers of fanaticism,’ and the like. I venture to think that the last thing which the moral consciousness of England wants today is a refrigerator, and that what it needs a great deal more than that is, that all Christian people should be brought face to face with this plain truth-that their religion has, as an indispensable part of it, ‘a Spirit of burning,’ and that if they have not been baptized in fire, there is little reason to believe that they have been baptized with the Holy Ghost.

I long that you and myself may be aflame for goodness, may be enthusiastic over plain morality, and may show that we are so by our daily life, by our rebuking the opposite, if need be, even if it take us into Herod’s chamber, and make Herodias our enemy for life.

IV. Lastly, observe the final element of greatness in this man-absolute humility of self-abnegation before Jesus Christ.

There is nothing that I know in biography anywhere more beautiful, more striking, than the contrast between the two halves of the character and demeanour of the Baptist; how, on the one side, he fronts all men undaunted and recognises no superior, and how neither threats nor flatteries nor anything else will tempt him to step one inch beyond the limitations of which he is aware, nor to abate one inch of the claims which he urges; and on the other hand how, like some tall cedar touched by the lightning’s hand, he falls prone before Jesus Christ and says, ‘He must increase, and I must decrease’: ‘A man can receive nothing except it be given him of God.’ He is all boldness on one side; all submission and dependence on the other.

You remember how, in the face of many temptations, that attitude was maintained. The very message which he had to carry was full of temptations to a self-seeking man to assert himself. You remember the almost rough ‘No!’ with which, reiteratedly, he met the suggestions of the deputation from Jerusalem that sought to induce him to say that he was more than he knew himself to be, and how he stuck by that infinitely humble and beautiful saying, ‘I am a voice’-that is all. You remember how the whole nation was in a kind of conspiracy to tempt him to assert himself, and was ready to break into a flame if he had dropped a spark, for all men were musing in their heart whether he was the Christ or not,’ and all the lawless and restless elements would have been only too glad to gather round him, if he had declared himself the Messiah. Remember how his own disciples came to him, and tried to play upon his jealousy and to induce him to assert himself: ‘Master, He whom thou didst baptize’-and so didst give Him the first credentials that sent men on His course-’has outstripped thee, and all men are coming to Him.’ And you remember the lovely answer that opened such depths of unexpected tenderness in the rough nature: ‘He that hath the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom heareth the voice; and that is enough to fill my cup with joy to the very brim.’ And what conceptions of Jesus Christ had John, that he thus bowed his lofty crest before Him, and softened his heart into submission almost abject? He knew Him to be the coming Judge, with the fan in His hand, who could baptize with fire, and he knew Him to be ‘the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.’ Therefore he fell before Him.

Brethren, we shall not be ‘great in the sight of the Lord’ unless we copy that example of utter self-abnegation before Jesus Christ. Thomas a Kempis says somewhere, ‘He is truly great who is small in his own sight, and thinks nothing of the giddy heights of worldly honour.’ You and I know far more of Jesus Christ than John the Baptist did. Do we bow ourselves before Him as he did? The Source from which he drew his greatness is open to us all. Let us begin with the recognition of the Lamb of God that takes away the world’s sin, and with it ours. Let the thought of what He is, and what He has done for us, bow us in unfeigned submission. Let it shatter all dreams of our own importance or our own desert. The vision of the Lamb of God, and it only, will crush in our hearts the serpent’s eggs of self-esteem and self-regard.

Then, let our closeness to Jesus Christ, and our experience of His power, kindle in us the fiery enthusiasm with which He baptizes all His true servants, and let it because we know the sweetnesses that excel, take from us all liability to be tempted away by the vulgar and coarse delights of earth and of sense. Let us keep ourselves clear of the babble that is round about us, and be strong because we grasp Christ’s hand.

I have been speaking about no characteristic which may not be attained by any man, woman, or child amongst us. ‘The least in the kingdom of heaven’ may be greater than John. It is a poor ambition to seek to be called ‘great.’ It is a noble desire to be ‘great in the sight of the Lord.’ And if we will keep ourselves close to Jesus Christ that will be attained. It will matter very little what men think of us, if at last we have praise from the lips of Him who poured such praise on His servant. We may, if we will. And then it will not hurt us though our names on earth be dark and our memories perish from among men..

‘Of so much fame in heaven expect the meed.’

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:5-25 The father and mother of John the Baptist were sinners as all are, and were justified and saved in the same way as others; but they were eminent for piety and integrity. They had no children, and it could not be expected that Elisabeth should have any in her old age. While Zacharias was burning incense in the temple, the whole multitude of the people were praying without. All the prayers we offer up to God, are acceptable and successful only by Christ's intercession in the temple of God above. We cannot expect an interest therein if we do not pray, and pray with our spirits, and are not earnest in prayer. Nor can we expect that the best of our prayers should gain acceptance, and bring an answer of peace, but through the mediation of Christ, who ever lives, making intercession. The prayers Zacharias often made, received an answer of peace. Prayers of faith are filed in heaven, and are not forgotten. Prayers made when we were young and entering into the world, may be answered when we are old and going out of the world. Mercies are doubly sweet that are given in answer to prayer. Zacharias shall have a son in his old age, who shall be instrumental in the conversion of many souls to God, and preparing them to receive the gospel of Christ. He shall go before Him with courage, zeal, holiness, and a mind dead to earthly interests and pleasures. The disobedient and rebellious would be brought back to the wisdom of their righteous forefathers, or rather, brought to attend to the wisdom of that Just One who was coming among them. Zacharias heard all that the angel said; but his unbelief spake. In striking him dumb, God dealt justly with him, because he had objected against God's word. We may admire the patience of God towards us. God dealt kindly with him, for thus he prevented his speaking any more distrustful, unbelieving words. Thus also God confirmed his faith. If by the rebukes we are under for our sin, we are brought to give the more credit to the word of God, we have no reason to complain. Even real believers are apt to dishonour God by unbelief; and their mouths are stopped in silence and confusion, when otherwise they would have been praising God with joy and gratitude. In God's gracious dealings with us we ought to observe his gracious regards to us. He has looked on us with compassion and favour, and therefore has thus dealt with us.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Shall be great - Shall be eminent, or distinguished as a preacher.

In the sight of the Lord - Greek, "before the Lord." That is, shall be "really" or "truly" great. God shall regard him as such.

Shall drink neither wine - The kind of wine commonly used in Judea was a light wine, often not stronger than cider in this country. It was the common drink of all classes of the people. See the notes at John 2:11. The use of wine was forbidden only to the Nazarite, Numbers 6:3. It was because John sustained this character that he abstained from the use of wine.

Strong drink - It is not easy to ascertain precisely what is meant by this word, but we are certain that it does not mean strong drink in our sense of the term. Distilled spirits were not then known. The art of distilling was discovered by an Arabian chemist in the 9th or 10th century; but distilled liquors are not used by Arabians. They banished them at once, as if sensible of their pernicious influence; nor are they used in Eastern nations at all. Europe and America have been the places where this poison has been most extensively used, and there it has beggared and ruined millions, and is yearly sweeping thousands unprepared into a wretched eternity. The "strong drink" among the Jews was probably nothing more than fermented liquors, or a drink obtained from fermented dates, figs, and the juice of the palm, or the lees of wine, mingled with sugar, and having the property of producing intoxication. Many of the Jewish writers say that by the word here translated "strong drink" was meant nothing more than old wine, which probably had the power of producing intoxication. See the notes at Isaiah 5:11.

Shall be filled with the Holy Ghost ... - Shall be divinely designated or appointed to this office, and qualified for it by all needful communications of the Holy Spirit. To be "filled" with the Holy Spirit is to be illuminated, sanctified, and guided by his influence. In this place it refers:

1. To the divine intention that he should be set apart to this work, as God designed that Paul should be an apostle from his mother's womb, Galatians 1:15.

2. It refers to an actual fitting for the work from the birth by the influence of the Holy Spirit, as was the case with Jeremiah Jer 1:5, and with the Messiah himself, Psalm 22:9-10.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. great in the sight of the Lord—nearer to Him in official standing than all the prophets. (See Mt 11:10, 11.)

drink neither wine nor strong drink—that is, shall be a Nazarite, or "a separated one" (Nu 6:2, &c.). As the leper was the living symbol of sin, so was the Nazarite of holiness; nothing inflaming was to cross his lips; no razor to come on his head; no ceremonial defilement to be contracted. Thus was he to be "holy to the Lord [ceremonially] all the days of his separation." This separation was in ordinary cases temporary and voluntary: only Samson (Jud 13:7), Samuel (1Sa 1:11), and John Baptist were Nazarites from the womb. It was fitting that the utmost severity of legal consecration should be seen in Christ's forerunner. He was the Reality and Perfection of the Nazarite without the symbol, which perished in that living realization of it: "Such an High Priest became us, who was Separate from Sinners" (Heb 7:26).

filled with the Holy Ghost, from … womb—a holy vessel for future service.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ver. 15,16. We have a natural ambition to be great, but it is only to be great in the sight of men; thence one man coveteth riches, another honours and reputation; but the true greatness is to be

great in the sight of the Lord, who doth certainly judge with the truest and most infallible judgment. In God’s sight he is a great man of whom God maketh a great use, especially in turning many souls to himself. Consider John separately from his work, and the concurrence of God with his work, he was a very little man, and so looked upon by the Pharisees and rulers, who would not believe in him. His father was an ordinary priest. For titles and dignities, he had none; John the Baptist was his highest title. For his clothing; he was not clothed in soft raiment, (as princes’ chaplains), he was clothed with a skin, with camel’s hair, and had a leathern girdle about his loins; yet Christ saith of him,

Among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist. He had no palace, no stately habitation; he lived mostly in desert places little inhabited. Nature was his cook, that provided him locusts and wild honey. Where was his greatness, but in this—He was a great and faithful preacher of the gospel, and God blessed his labours to convert souls? They are little men that do little of the work for which God hath sent them into the world, and do little good in their generation.

He shall drink neither wine nor strong drink: by strong drink is meant any drink which ordinarily intoxicates. This was the law of the Nazarites, Numbers 6:3. It was forbidden the priests during the time of their ministration upon pain of death, Leviticus 10:9. No lovers of wine and strong drink can be great men in the sight of God. The minister of the gospel must not be one given to wine, 1 Timothy 3:3 Titus 1:7.

And he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. This is true, both as to prophecy, (which is all extraordinary gift of the Holy Ghost), and also of the Holy Ghost considered as a sanctifying Spirit renewing the heart.

And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. Then it seems there is another conversion besides the conversion of men from paganism. John (with the assistance of the Holy Ghost) was an instrument to turn many of the Israelites, who already verbally owned the true God, but were drenched in errors, and superstitions, and looseness of life, to the Lord their God, by repentance; and this he did by preaching both law and gospel to them. This made him a great man, for, They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars for ever and ever, Daniel 12:3.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord,.... Of Jehovah, the Father; with whom, what is highly esteemed among men, is oftentimes an abomination; and of the Lord Jesus Christ, before whom he was to go, and who pronounced him a prophet, and more than a prophet, and even greater than any born of women, Matthew 11:9 and of the Lord, the Spirit, with whom he was filled from his mother's womb: he was great, not in birth and blood, in worldly riches and grandeur, but in gifts and grace, in his work, office, and usefulness, and in the esteem of God, and even of men too:

and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; which were forbidden the Nazarites, Numbers 6:3 where the Jews, by "wine", understand "new wine"; and by "strong drink", old wine: so all the "three Targums", of Onkelos, Jonathan ben Uzziel, and the Jerusalem, paraphrase the words there, "from wine new and old, he shall separate himself"; and they allow strong drink to a Nazarite, that has no wine in it: their canon (r) runs thus,

"three things are forbidden a Nazarite, defilement, and shaving, and whatever proceeds from the vine, whether fruit, or the refuse of fruit; but strong drink made of dates, or dried figs, and such like, is free for a Nazarite; and the strong drink which is forbidden him in the law, is strong drink made of mixture of wine.

But the Hebrew word, and which is here retained by the evangelist, signifies (s) any sort of liquor, which is inebriating, whether it is made of fruits, or honey, or what not. The Jews had no such strong drink as ours, which we call beer or ale; but they speak of the strong drink of the Medes, which they say was an inebriating liquor, made of barley (t):

and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb; or "whilst in his mother's womb", as the Syriac, Arabic, and Persic versions render it: like Jeremiah, he was sanctified, set apart, and ordained to be the prophet of the Highest, before he came out of his mother's womb; and was then under such an influence of the Spirit of God, as to leap in it for joy, at the salutation of the mother of Christ to his, Luke 1:41 and very early appeared to have the extraordinary gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost, qualifying him for his work,

(r) Maimon. Hilch. Nezirut, c. 5. sect. 1.((s) R. David Kimchi in Sepher Shorashim, rad. (t) Misn. Pesach. c. 3. sect. 1. & Jarchi, Maimom. & Bartenora in ib.

Geneva Study Bible

For he shall be great in the {o} sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor {p} strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.

(o) So the Hebrews say when a rare kind of excellency is signified: so it is said of Nimrod in Ge 10:9, He was a mighty hunter before the LORD.

(p) Any drink that might make someone drunk.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

Luke 1:15. Μέγας ἐνώπ. τ. κυρ.] A designation of a truly great man; “talis enim quisque vere est, qualis est coram Deo,” Estius. Comp. on Luke 1:6.

καὶ οἶνον κ.τ.λ.] Description of a נָוִיר, as those were called, who had for the service of God bound themselves to abstain from wine and other intoxicating drinks (Numbers 6:3), and to let the hair of their head grow. John was a Nazarite, not for a certain time, but for life, like Samson (Jdg 13:5) and Samuel (1 Samuel 1:12). See in general, Ewald, Alterth. p. 96 ff.; Saalschütz, Mos. R. p 361 f.; Keil, Archäol. I. § 67; Vilmar in the Stud. u. Krit. 1864, p. 438 ff.

τὸ σίκερα (שִׁבָר), which does not occur in the Greek writers, is any exciting drink of the nature of wine, but not made of grapes; Leviticus 10:9 and frequently in the LXX. It was prepared from corn, fruit, dates, palms (Pliny, H. N. xiv. 19), and so forth. Eusebius, Praep. Evang. vi. 10, has the genitive σίκερος.

ἔτι ἐκ κοιλίας κ.τ.λ.] ἔτι never stands for ἤδη, but: of the Holy Spirit[19] he shall be full even from his mother’s womb, so that thus already in his mother’s womb (see Origen) he shall be filled with the Spirit. A pregnant form of embracing the two points. Comp. Plutarch, consol. ad Apoll. p. 104: ἔτι ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς ἠκολούθηκεν (having therefore already followed ἘΝ ἈΡΧῇ). Doubtless the leaping of the child in the mother’s womb, Luke 1:41, is conceived of as a manifestation of this being filled with the Spirit. Comp. Calovius and Maldonatus.

[19] It is quite arbitrary in Olshausen to support the rationalistic opinion that the expression here is to be understood not of the distinctive Holy Spirit, but of the holy power of God in general.

Expositor's Greek Testament

Luke 1:15. μέγας, a great man before the Lord; not merely in God’s sight = true greatness, but indicating the sphere or type of greatness: in the region of ethics and religion.—καὶ οἶνον, etc., points to the external badge of the moral and religious greatness: abstinence as a mark of consecration and separation—a devotee.—σίκερα = שֵׁכָר (not Greek), strong drink, extracted from any kind of fruit but grapes (here only in N. T.).—Πνεύματος Ἁγίου: in opposition to wine and strong drink, as in Ephesians 5:18. But the conception of the Holy Spirit, formed from the Johannine type of piety, is very different from that of St. Paul, or suggested by the life of our Lord.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. great in the sight of the Lord] See Luke 7:24-30; Matthew 11:11.

shall drink neither wine nor strong drink] He shall be a Nazarite (Luke 7:33; Numbers 6:1-4); like Samson (Jdg 13:2-7); and the Rechabites (Jeremiah 35:6). ‘Strong drink’ (Sikera from Heb. Shakar ‘he is intoxicated’) was also forbidden to ministering priests, Leviticus 10:8. The term seems to have been specially applied to palm wine (Plin. Hist. Nat. xiv. 19), and all intoxicants (e. g. beer, &c.) which are not made of the juice of the grape. ‘Ne Syder,’ Wyclif.

shall be filled with the Holy Ghost] The contrast between the false and hateful excitement of drunkenness and the divine exaltation of spiritual fervour is also found in Ephesians 5:18, “Be not drunk with wine … but be filled with the Spirit.” Comp. Acts 2:13.

even from his mother’s womb] Compare 1 Samuel 1:11; Jeremiah 1:5.

Bengel's Gnomen

Luke 1:15. Ἔσται, shall be) viz. that son shall be.—Κυρίου, the Lord) God the Father is meant. Presently after he speaks also of the Holy Spirit and of the Son of God. Already, in connection with the forerunner of the Messiah, the economy of the Holy Trinity more fully expands itself to view.—καὶ οἶνον καὶ σίκερα οὐ μὴ πίῃ, and wine and strong drink he shall not drink) So also Jdg 13:4, μὴ πίης οἶνον καὶ σίκερα. Σίκερα is from the Hebr. שכר, and denotes all drink distinct from wine, and yet intoxicating, as the juice of the date, malt liquor, etc. Such abstinence was enjoined on John, also on the mother of Samson.—καὶ, and) Similarly, being filled with the Holy Spirit, is put in antithesis to being drunk with wine, Ephesians 5:18.—ἐκ, from) An abbreviated mode of expression: meaning, in the womb (Luke 1:41; Luke 1:44) and subsequently [from that time forward].

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - Great in the sight of the Lord. To the pious old Jewish priest the strange visitant's words would bear a deep signification. Zacharias would quickly catch the angel's thoughts. His son was not to be the Messiah of the people's hope, but was to be like one of those great ones loved of God, of whom the women of Israel sang on their solemn feast-days - one like Samson, only purer, or Samuel, or the yet greater Elijah. Could all this deep joy be true? Shall drink neither wine. The old curse then as now. God's heroes must be free from even the semblance of temptation. They must stamp their high lives, from the beginning, by the solemn vow of self-denial and abstinence. It is remarkable how many of the great deliverers and teachers of the chosen people were commanded from childhood to enroll themselves among the abstainers from all strong drink. Nor strong drink. The word δεήσις includes all kinds of fermented drink except that made from the grape; it was especially applied to palm wine. Luke 1:15

Vincent's Word Studies

Strong drink (σίκερα)

A Hebrew word, meaning any kind of intoxicating liquor not made from grapes. Wyc., sydir.

Even from his mother's womb

Ἔτι, yet, still, means while yet unborn. Tynd., even in his mother's womb. Compare Luke 1:41.